“TELL ME HOW THIS ENDS” America’S Muddled Involvement with Syria by Charles Glass

REVISION

“TELL ME HOW THIS ENDS” America’s muddled involvement with Syria By Charles Glass

America in the Middle East: learning dle East policy files, the cupboard was memoranda to the incoming team, curves are for pussies. bare. “There wasn’t an overarching though we can’t know if they read —Jon Stewart, The Daily Show, strategy document for anywhere in the them. We definitely had a long one on June 2, 2015 Middle East,” the senior official, who Syria, on all aspects of the conflict.” insisted on anonymity, told me in a I have observed the Syrian conflict n January 2017, following Donald coffee shop near the White House. off and on since it began, in 2011, fil- ITrump’s inauguration, his national “Not even on the ISIS campaign, so ing stories from Damascus, Aleppo, security staffers entered their there wasn’t a cross- governmental Homs, Palmyra, the Turkish border, White House offices for the first time. game plan.” and other zones of contention. But One told me that when he searched Rob Malley, President Barack the story as seen from inside Syria for the previous administration’s Mid- Obama’s senior Middle East adviser seemed as incomplete as the Trojan and Harvard Law School classmate, War without the gods. In the confla- Charles Glass is the author of They Fought denied the charge. “That can’t be gration’s eighth year, I flew to the Alone: The True Story of the Starr Broth- true,” the fifty- five- year- old scholar in- Olympian heights of Washington to ers, British Secret Agents in Nazi Occupied France, and has covered the Middle East since sisted when we met in his office at the ask the immortals what they were doing 1973. His research was funded in part by a International Crisis Group in Wash- while an estimated half million of Syria’s grant from the Alicia Patterson Foundation. ington. “We provided comprehensive twenty- three million inhabitants were

Wreckage in Arbin, eastern Ghouta, Syria, which was under siege by the Assad regime, March 27, 2018 © Ammar Al Bushy/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images REVISION 51 dying, millions more fled the country, desperate young man named Mo- swelled by the day. Ford cabled Wash- and some of civilization’s most pre- hamed Bouazizi inflamed Tunisia. ington that the government was using cious monuments were destroyed. Mass demonstrations forced the flight live ammunition to quell the demon- The mandarins’ disclosures, along of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, strations. He noted that the protesters with their published memoirs and inspiring similar protests elsewhere in were not entirely peaceful: “There was position papers, made me sympa- the Arab world. “They were the heady a little bit of violence from the dem- thetic to the Trump staffer’s claim days of the Arab Spring,” said Michael onstrators in Daraa. They burned the that the Obama team left nothing Dempsey, Obama’s deputy director of Syriatel office.” (Syriatel is the cell to clarify its Syria strategy. In fact, national intelligence and chief intel phone company of Rami Makhlouf, there was no strategy. There were briefer. Citizens massed in the thou- Assad’s cousin, who epitomized for debates, options, discussions, an- sands in Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, and many Syrians the ruling elite’s cor- guish, orders, counterorders, and ac- Libya, exploding the myth of a supine ruption.) “And they burned a court tions. In his recent book on his Arab world. building, but they didn’t kill any- years as Obama’s deputy national se- The vulnerable regimes in early body.” Funerals of protesters pro- curity adviser, The World As It Is, 2011 were in the American camp, a duced more demonstrations and thus Ben Rhodes portrayed White House coincidence that the Syrian presi- more funerals. The Obama Admin- deliberations as group therapy more dent, Bashar al- Assad, interpreted as istration, though, was preoccupied than strategic planning. “I felt the proof that the Arab Spring was a with Egypt, where Hosni Mubarak burden on Obama,” he wrote, one repudiation of American tutelage. had resigned in February, and with of many examples of his and his As Russia’s and Iran’s only Arab ally, the NATO bombing campaign in colleagues’ feelings overshadowing he foresaw no challenge to his Libya to support the Libyan insur- circumstances. “He had to respond throne. An omen in the unlikely gents who would depose and murder to this awful event in Syria while guise of an incident at an open- air Muammar Qaddafi in October. bearing the additional weight of market in the old city the war in Iraq. . . . ” But isn’t that a of Damascus, in Feb- president’s job? ruary 2011, should The men and women around have changed his Obama’s conference tables and via mind. One policeman video links claimed that, more than ordered a motorist to anything else, they wanted to do the stop at an intersection, right thing. In Rhodes’s case, anything. while another officer “Even though I had misgivings about told him to drive on. our Syria policy,” he wrote, “I was glad “The poor guy got con- we were doing something.” Obama’s flicting instructions, strategists sought to make Syria better. and did what I would As they admit now, they didn’t. have done and stopped,” recalled the US ambas- he year 2010 neared its end sador to Syria, Robert T with the Middle East mired Ford, who had only just in stasis. The United Na- arrived in the country. tions Human Development annual The second policeman report for that year concluded that dragged the driver out the Arab states suffered the world’s of his car and thrashed him. “A crowd Ambassador Ford detected a turn greatest democracy deficit, the gathered, and all of a sudden it took in the Syrian uprising that would de- highest number of human rights vi- off,” Ford said. “No violence, but it was fine part of its character: “The first olations, and the world’s most pro- big enough that the interior minister really serious violence on the opposi- nounced “gender disparities in repro- himself went down to the market and tion side was up on the coast ductive health, empowerment and told people to go home.” Ford reported around Baniyas, where a bus was labour market participation.” Arab to Washington, “This is the first big stopped and soldiers were hauled off dictators had their populations un- demonstration that we know of. And the bus. If you were Alawite, you der control, while they pillaged the it tells us that this tinder is dry.” were shot. If you were Sunni, they public purse to enrich themselves The next month, the security police let you go.” At demonstrations, and purchase American weaponry. astride the Jordanian border in the some activists chanted the slogan, Palestinian– Israeli peace was going dusty southern town of Daraa ignited “Alawites to the grave, and Chris- nowhere, and Iran appeared deter- the tinder by torturing children who tians to Beirut.” A sectarian ele- mined to acquire nuclear weapons to had scrawled anti- Assad graffiti on ment wanted to remove Assad, not match Israel’s. walls. Their families, proud Sunni because he was a dictator but be- But stasis shifted toward dynamism tribespeople, appealed for justice, then cause he belonged to the Alawite in December 2010, when the self- called for reform of the regime, and minority sect that Sunni funda- immolation of an unemployed and finally demanded its removal. Rallies mentalists regard as heretical.

52 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / FEBRUARY 2019 Riots between police and demonstrators in Tunis, Tunisia, January 18, 2011 © Alex Majoli/Magnum Photos Washington neglected to factor “So, at that time, the big question for of you who can, buy dollars, buy euros, that into its early calculations. Damascus wasn’t Ford,” Barabandi told any kind of foreign currency, because Phil Gordon, the assistant secretary me in his spartan Washington office. “It the lira is going to drop like Iraq. And of state for European affairs before be- was the military attaché. Why did this get out if you can. I don’t remember tell- coming Obama’s White House coordi- guy go with Ford?” The Syrian regime ing any Syrian opposition to go to Istan- nator for the Middle East, told me, “I had a long- standing fear of American bul.” One Syrian contact told me that think the initial attitude in Syria was intelligence interference, dating to the the French ambassador, Éric Chevallier, seen through that prism of what was CIA- assisted overthrow in 1949 of the had invited him to leave and come back happening in the other countries, elected parliamentary government and “in two months” as part of the new or- which was, in fact, leaders—the public several attempted coups d’état afterward. der. He declined the offer. rising up against their leaders and in The presence in Hama of an ambassador Ford returned to Washington, some cases actually getting rid of them, with his military attaché allowed the where Obama’s brain trust held endless and in Tunisia, and Yemen, and Libya, with our help.” Ambassador Ford said he counseled Syria’s activists to remain non violent and urged both sides to negotiate. Demonstrations became weekly events, starting after Friday’s noon prayer as men left the mosques, and spreading north to Homs and Hama. Ford and some embassy staffers, including the military attaché, drove to Hama, with

Assad regime to paint its opponents as pawns of a hostile foreign power.

he State Depart- T ment closed the government permission, one Thursday US Embassy in evening in July. To his surprise, Ford Damascus in February said, “We were welcomed like heroes by 2012 following intelligence the opposition people. We had a simple that the Salafist Jabhat message—no violence. There were no al- Nusra group planned to burned buildings. There was a general bomb it. Syrian friends strike going on, and the opposition told me that, before he left, people had control of the streets. They Ford had urged them to had all kinds of checkpoints. Largely, defect and return as part of the government had pulled out.” a post- Assad government. Bassam Barabandi, a diplomat who Ford’s recollection differed: “I remember conferences to form a policy for Syria. defected in Washington to establish a the next- to- last day of our embassy—we Jake Sullivan, Vice President Joe Biden’s Syrian exile organization, People De- closed on February 6—I told the Syrian national security adviser, attended most mand Change, thought that Ford had staff . . . the embassy is going to close. of the sessions. “The question was why made two errors: his appearance in They said, What are we going to do? I Qaddafi must go and not Assad,” the Hama raised hopes for direct interven- told them, there is going to be a horrible slim forty- one- year- old Yale law professor tion that was not forthcoming, and he war. There’s going to be bombs. The told me in his office at the Carnegie was accompanied by a military attaché. currency is going to plunge. I said, those Endowment. No one, he said, convinced

Left to right: Libya, October 28, 2011 © Michael Christopher Brown/Magnum Photos; Demonstrators in Tahrir Square, in Cairo, protesting Hosni Mubarak’s regime, January 30, 2011 © Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images; A celebration of Mubarak’s resignation in Tahrir Square, February 11, 2011 © Alex Majoli/Magnum Photos REVISION 53 Obama that attacking Assad would achieve a result better than the anarchy following NATO’s bombardment of Libya. The debates continued throughout the spring, as open warfare erupted in Syria. “By summer,” Sullivan observed, “there was a divide within the administration, ‘principals’ versus those who worked the Syria file. Experts were more forward- leaning; principals, more cautious.” The leading experts were Fred Hof and Robert Ford; the principals, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Pa- netta. Ford said, “I wrote a memo to Clinton with a copy that went to the White House—this was in June 2012—that people, the time has come for President policy.” But that hope ignored the the Al Qaeda faction is taking over Assad to step aside.” Where Assad differences between Syria and the eastern Syria. And the Free Syrian sensed a plot to depose him, the opposi- deposed dictatorships. Army doesn’t have enough supplies, tion envisioned American– NATO com- Tunisia’s tiny army was not a deci- not enough money, to hold them off. If mitment, as in Libya. sive political actor and the country eastern Syria falls, they are going to Fred Hof told me, “Our view in the had staged only one coup in its history, link up with the people on the other State Department was, fine, if this is Ben Ali’s in 1987. Government insti- side of the border in Iraq and create this the judgment the president comes to, tutions could function without him. gigantic entity.” Two years later, the that Assad should step aside, then In Egypt, Mubarak was the face— Islamic State would establish its caliph- what we should really have in place called derisively by Egyptians “la ate on exactly that territory. is an interagency strategy to make it vache qui rit,” “the laughing cow”—of With the principals urging caution, happen.” Hof regretted that the a military regime that could survive the Obama Administration dispatched White House did not develop that with any general as its figurehead. In nonlethal aid—what Ford called “food, strategy, on the assumption that “this Syria, Bashar al- Assad was the re- medicines, meals ready to eat, stuff like guy [Assad] is toast.” gime. His father, Hafez al- Assad, had that”—to the ostensibly moderate Free Chollet described one effect of come to power in November 1970 as Syrian Army (FSA) faction. It also Obama’s “step aside” statement: “It the survivor of nearly annual military worked through a diplomatic channel raises expectations on the ground. . . . putsches in the 1950s and 1960s. At with Russia. When neither produced It means you’re saying they should go his death in June 2000, he be- results, a senior administration official at the tip of a military spear.” queathed his son an edifice that had said, “The State Department, the agen- Obama, while imposing tougher eco- prevailed over thirty years of failed cy [CIA], and some in the White House nomic sanctions on Syria, was not coup plots, assassination attempts, began advocating for providing arms to providing the spear, “for now.” Then, wars with Israel, and Islamist insur- the Free Syrian Army. That summer, Phil Gordon recalled, White House rections. To depose the son, the oppo- [CIA Director David] Petraeus and Clin- perceptions altered: “That was the sition had to undermine a fortress state ton made a pitch. The president shot it evolution from skepticism and ‘not to which many Syrians were loyal, or down, ‘for now.’ ” really our role’ to a bit more opti- at least acquiescent. Derek Chollet, who served Obama at mism [that] maybe we can even assist Obama imposed economic sanc- Defense, State, and the White House, this process along.” The question tions, primarily on members of the re- picked up the story: “And the general was, what kind of assistance? Gordon gime’s inner circle, and he asked the view was, and I think even at this point, did not believe Obama had in mind Russians to pressure Assad to leave. that Assad, one way or another, he “providing military material support Phil Gordon, who accompanied Hill- would go. And so we need to, in order to Arab protesters.” There was a ary Clinton to meetings with the to have any chance to be able to shape view, he said, “It’s just, well, this is Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lav- an outcome on the other end, we should the trend, and the people overthrew rov, said, “Lavrov would say, ‘It’s not be for it.” In the absence of doing some- their dictators in Tunisia and Egypt up to us.’ . . . The Russian view was, thing, Obama said something, on Au- and Yemen. And Syria will be next. ‘Look, we don’t love Assad. We don’t gust 18, 2011: “For the sake of the Syrian And I think it was more hope than a care about him, but it’s not up to us to

Rebel fighters prepare to launch a grenade with a homemade slingshot in 54 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / FEBRUARY 2019 the Old City, Aleppo, 2013 © Moises Saman/Magnum Photos determine Syria’s fate.’ ” Lavrov also gime.’ ’’ Hof said they stuck with players on the ground, that a red line warned Clinton that removing Assad Assad, despite having “no illusions for us is we start seeing a whole would lead to chaos and jihadism. about the corruption, incompetence, bunch of chemical weapons moving “They had a fair point in saying we and brutality of the regime.” Others around or being utilized. That would didn’t have a plan for Syria if we got who did not fight against the regime change my calculus.” As with his call rid of Assad,” Gordon admitted. “And, were the minorities—Alawis, Is- a year earlier for Assad to step aside, to be honest, I don’t think we were mailis, Druze, Arab Christians, Ar- Obama’s chemical- weapons declara- ever in a position to convincingly say, menians, and Yezidis, all of whom tion would haunt him. A former US ‘No, no, no, if Assad falls, it won’t be the jihadis wanted to eliminate—as ambassador to the Middle East told like Iraq or Afghanistan.’ ” well as Sunnis who preferred a secu- me, “The ‘red line’ was an open invita- In Damascus and other cities, se- lar dictatorship to a theocracy. tion to a false- flag operation.” Robert curity forces fired live ammunition at Hof pushed for supporting secular Gates, who was the secretary of de- the crowds, and although the United insurgents. Other officials, he told me, fense from December 2006 to July States had sided with security forces shared his viewpoint: 2011, after leaving the department who shot Arab demonstrators in Is- called the red line “a serious mistake” rael and Bahrain, its sympathies in In the summer of 2012, you had the in- that harmed American credibility. Syria were with the protesters. Many cident of Clinton, [CIA Director Da- On August 21, 2013, poison- gas Syrian activists argued that they vid] Petraeus, [Defense Secretary Leon] canisters shattered the early- morning should take up arms in the belief Panetta, and [Chairman of the Joint quiet in eastern Ghouta, a populous Chiefs of Staff Martin] Dempsey going that the United States would match to the president and saying, in effect, rebel- held suburb of Damascus. Hor- action to words. Others urged re- Look, Mr. President, what Assad is do- rifying videos showed the world chil- straint, fearing that, force against ing is terrible, but now we’re noticing dren gasping for breath, victims force, they would lose. “The regime something else. We’re noticing some frothing at the mouth, and discol- was built for this,” one young orga- Al Qaeda elements beginning to estab- ored corpses without visible wounds. nizer told me at the time. lish themselves in Syria, and what we Prior to this massive outrage, there “The beginning of militarization recommend is that the United States had been sporadic and small-scale had started before the end of 2011,” take the lead in arming and training use of chemical weapons by both Fred Hof said, noting the escalation vetted elements of the Syrian opposi- sides, for which each side blamed the from defending demonstrators to of- tion, focusing, for the most part, on of- other. In Washington, the director of ficers and soldiers who had defected fensive operations. The door opened from the Syrian army, forces that national intelligence, James Clapper, wide to outside meddling. Hof said would be able to fight in two told Obama that the case against that arms from Turkey, Saudi Arabia, directions—against the regime and Assad was not a “slam dunk,” the and Qatar—three countries whose against Al Qaeda. And the president term CIA Director George Tenet human rights records were no better turned that down. He turned it down. used in December 2002 to affirm than Syria’s—to various, mainly Is- that Saddam was hiding weapons of lamist, groupings had an unexpected n August 2012, a year and a half mass destruction. Nonetheless, consequence: “I think all of this in- I into the war, a question from the Obama declared that Assad had advertently but quite decisively NBC correspondent Chuck Todd crossed the red line. played into the hands of the regime.” produced a portentous response from “Whoever actually used chemical The Assad regime’s strategy for deal- Obama: “We have been very clear to weapons in east Ghouta,” said a CIA ing with civil disobedience, popular the Assad regime, but also to other analyst, “the blame went straight to mobilization, and general Assad. He had crossed strikes may have been in- the red line, and the reb- effective, but the regime els were not the only knew how to handle ones who expected him armed insurrection. And [Obama] to do something Salafist fighters terrified about it.” many Syrians who, while Ben Rhodes wrote that dismissive of Assad, did General Dempsey urged not welcome his replace- Obama to act: “Up to this ment by religious fanatics point, he had argued that with long beards. Hof Syria was a slippery slope said, “I’m not just talking where there was little about the entourage and chance of success. Now he members of the [Assad] said that something needed family, but ordinary Syri- to be done even if we ans, Syrians I’ve known didn’t know what would for decades, who would happen after we took ac- tell me, ‘Fred, we’re going tion.” Obama decided to to stick with the re- act, calling on Britain and

Photographs of the Assad family, on a wall in Aleppo, March 2013 © Moises Saman/Magnum Photos REVISION 55 France to join an American air and stroy his stockpiles. When missile assault on Syria. France com- the Islamic State later over- mitted at once, but the British Parlia- ran the government’s ment voted not to take part. As chemical- weapons stores, French and American forces prepared they had been removed. The crisis You can establish the safe to strike, Obama took a walk in the ended, but gases including chlorine zones. And it’ll be, it’ll just Rose Garden with his chief of staff, and sarin would be used again—as be swell”—well, most wars Denis McDonough. Suddenly, the or- before, with blame placed on each aren’t that way. der went out for the warplanes to side by the other. As the war escalat- No- fly zones required stand down. ed, at least 95 percent of the casual- demolishing Syria’s air de- “The next morning, there was a ties resulted from conventional fenses, which the Russians meeting in the Situation Room,” said weapons from Russia, the United had installed and were Jake Sullivan, who sat in. “[Secretary States, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the committed to defending. of State John] Kerry, [Defense Secre- United Arab Emirates, Turkey, and “No- fly” also meant mak- tary Chuck] Hagel, the principals. Iran that no one was obstructing. ing targets of Russian Samantha [Power] was on the screen. planes in Syrian skies, risk- McDonough, [National Security Ad- ebate continued within the ing a third world war. viser] Susan Rice. Susan objected. She D administration on what to The bleak history of safe said, Don’t go to Congress. Obama do. Obama listened to argu- havens in Bosnia, where ci- went out later that day and gave a ments for and against no- fly zones and vilians seeking safety were statement on asking Congress.” Morn- safe havens. Robert Gates ing in Washington was night in Syria, addressed the no- fly zone when I drove into Damascus. It looked proposal in an interview as if it had been evacuated. Even the with CBS’s Face the Nation troops had gone into shelters. The after he left office: capital was braced for a massive You know, I oversaw two Franco- American air strike. Syrian wars that began with quick friends feared the jihadis would over- regime change. And we all run the capital under cover of the know what happened after Western attack, until the announce- that. And as I said to the ment came from Washington that the Congress when we went raid would not take place. into Libya, when they were A series of unscripted statements by talking about a no- fly zone, Kerry and Lavrov led Russia to per- “It begins with an act of war.” And haven’t we suade Assad to acknowledge his learned that when you go to poison- gas arsenal, sign the Chemical war, the outcomes are un- Weapons Convention, and allow the predictable? And anybody Organization for the Prohibition of who says, “It’s gonna be Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to de- clean. It’s gonna be neat.

Top left: Free Syrian Army fighters launc h a rocket-propelled grenade toward a Syrian Army position in Aleppo, February 17, 2013 © Franco Pagetti/VII/Redux. Bottom right: A still from an Islamic State propaganda video, showing an explo- 56 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / FEBRUARY 2019 sion the group claims to have initiated at the temple of Baalshamin, in Palmyra, August 25, 2015 © Kyodo/AP Images been? An acquaintance of Blinken, Obama’s deputy national John Kerry’s with Mideast ex- security adviser and then John Ker- pertise who asked not to be ry’s deputy secretary of state from named recalled Kerry telling 2015 to 2017. He recalled Obama’s him in 2013, “Let’s get serious. reaction to every proposal to deploy There is no more resolution to troops or air power in Syria: “I think this Syrian thing without from President Obama’s perspective, Bashar. He has to be brought when some of us would advocate to in, and we have to negotiate do more, take some more chances, he with him.” The consultant would regularly ask, ‘Tell me how this

recalled that Kerry spoke ends.’ No one could answer with con- later that day to a wealthy fidence that we would not wind up on Syrian- British businessman, a slippery slope, getting in deeper and who argued that the United deeper than we intended.” States had to depose Assad. A senior Mideast adviser to Obama The consultant saw Kerry explained the misgivings of the ad- massacred while UN soldiers looked the next day: “Kerry told me, com- ministration’s anti- interventionists: away, made their utility suspect. Safe pletely oblivious to what he said be- havens and no- fly zones, however, dom- fore, ‘Assad has to go. As long as Assad Many in the administration were in inated White House deliberations. One is there, he is a magnet for terrorists.’ I favor of some form of intervention, of Obama’s Middle East advisers re- said, ‘Assad is a magnet for terrorists? perhaps targeted strikes. But there was also significant skepticism about the called, “Was the right approach to create What is it about Assad that attracts wisdom of direct U.S. military in- safe zones? No- fly zones? Discussions on them to fight? What about the ones in volvement, about the nature of the this issue continued well into 2016. Even Sinai? In Mali? In Yemen? In Kenya? In opposition, the risk of a slippery slope. as late as the assault on Aleppo [by the Somalia? What do they have to do with Syrian Army and Russia in 2016], ques- Assad?’ . . . There was no policy. They The compromise between direct tions returned about what we could do, were making it up as they went along.” 1 military involvement and staying out whether to go after the regime directly One of the administration’s more was the route taken by many presidents or protect the city.” I asked the adviser, articulate Syria hawks was Antony before Obama: a covert operation to “Then the decision was made not to?” raise an insurgent army and train it in 1 David Wade, former chief of staff for Sec- He answered, “Right.” retary Kerry, disputes this account and nearby countries; provide weapons, sus- If the Obama people were to have says, “There was no 2013 meeting that al- tenance, and communications; and done something, what would it have tered his view.” oversee the military campaign. It was Clockwise from top left: Residents and armed rebels search for survivors among the wreckage of a residential building targeted by a Syrian Air Force strike in the al-Sukri neighborhood of Aleppo, March 25, 2013 (detail) © Moises Saman/Magnum Photos; Kobanî, a Kurdish village almost entirely reduced to rubble by coalition air strikes against the Islamic State, August 8, 2015 © Moises Saman/Magnum Photos; Children are rushed to a hospital after an alleged chlorine gas attack on Hamouriyah, in eastern Ghouta, March 7, 2018 © Anas Alkharboutli/picture-alliance/Getty Images REVISION 57 high-risk for the locals and casualty- free for the Americans. A senior administration official told me, “Only a few were against arming the opposition. Obama commis- sioned a report on the history of arming groups.” The CIA produced a history that remains classi- fied and which, says one of those who read it, showed “only one or two instances of successful proxy wars.” Despite the failure of the CIA’s secret wars, from Al- bania in the late 1940s through Angola in the 1970s and 1980s, Obama assigned the CIA to train militants in Turkey and Jordan under what is called a Title 50 program in defense of American national security. Rebels turned up with equipment they could not have looted of them was working along their own approval. “That’s bullshit,” a CIA from the Syrian Army. Al Qaeda- chart.” Lister estimated that at one time source told me. linked gangs shared the bounty, there were as many as fifteen hundred Rebel training became the province prompting Secretary of State Clinton insurgent groups with conflicting goals of US and British agents, and the in the summer of 2012 to fly to Istan- and no central command. It was a recipe Turks allocated weapons. But there bul, by then the unofficial capital of for failure as much as for carnage. was no control over fighters when they the Syrian opposition in exile. Jake A major source of weapons for infiltrated Syria, where many joined Sullivan said that she wanted US al- the Syrian opposition was Libya, Salafist brigades. A British trainer told lies Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar which had become a twenty- four- me that the program was benefiting “to ensure the arms were provided hour arms bazaar. It furnished TOW religious fanatics more than any mod- with checks to make certain they were anti- tank missiles and other war ma- erate, secular oppositionists. not going to Nusra or other terrorist tériel with the help of the CIA sta- The TOWs from Benghazi shifted groups.” He recalled her asking, “ ‘How tion at the US consulate compound the balance on the ground in favor are the controls implemented?’ The in Benghazi.2 CIA director David Pe- of the rebels, especially the better- steps were taken, but they were incom- traeus became so concerned that Al armed and highly motivated jihadis. plete.” Incomplete or non existent, be- Qaeda affiliates were receiving the Assad’s tanks and helicopters were cause jihadis with weapons supplied by weapons that he flew to Turkey on no longer invulnerable. Phil Gordon American allies flooded Syria through September 2, 2012, to complain to refused to discuss the issue of covert the Turkish border. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdo- assistance, but he noted that the Charles Lister, who has monitored gan.˘ The supply chain became public administration “started to publicly insurgent groups from the beginning of after the September 11 murder of US say in the spring or maybe June of the Syrian conflict and wroteThe Syrian ambassador Christopher Stevens in 2013 that we were providing direct Jihad, told me, “By the summer of 2012, the Benghazi compound. Media out- support to the opposition, including there was a pretty active effort on both lets, including Fox News, reported military support.” The support was a sides of Syria’s northern and southern that ships delivered TOWs, surface- program, and the program had a name: borders to prop up and help to create to- air missiles, and other high- tech Timber Sycamore. a somewhat more organized opposition weaponry from Libya to the port Speaking in his office at Washing- movement. But the fact that Qatar of Iskenderun˙ in southern Turkey. ton’s Middle East Institute, Charles and Turkey and Saudi and the UAE After the publicity, Washington Lister recalled, and Jordan were all involved, as govern- put full blame on Qatar for run- Sometimes they [the insurgents] sud- ments, and then there were separate ning a rogue operation without US denly found themselves wearing nice private networks coming out of Doha, 2 A former senior administration official uniforms, new camouflage fatigues. Kuwait City, Istanbul—every single one categorically denies this happened. And it pretty quickly emerged that, at

58 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / FEBRUARY 2019 Ain Issa refugee cam p, located between Raqqa and Kobanî, August 17, 2017 © Andy Spyra/laif/Redux the end of 2012, weapons, shoots Jabhat al- Nusra and the Islamic While administration officials de- mostly from [the] former Yugo- State, not only used the weapons but bated, Syria descended deeper into slavia, had started to be also advertised them in videos that mayhem that was driving millions shipped in through Amman included beheadings, the hurling of out of the country and thousands to into the south. And then gay men off towers to their deaths, the their graves. By the summer of 2015, I some of that started to appear murder of American journalists and could no longer reach Aleppo from in northern Syria. I don’t know exactly when an open British aid workers, and the rape of Damascus because of the fighting. I channel was established, but it Yezidi women. Charles Lister said that called Armen Mazloumian, whose wouldn’t have been any later “all of the opposition worked with family had owned and run the city’s than the spring of 2013. Cer- Nusra, because they were very good on famed Hotel Baron since 1909. He tainly [by] December of 2012, the battlefield. But what was the result blamed the West for giving arms to the those first weapons appeared of that in London and Paris and jihadis occupying the eastern half of in the south. And it subse- Washington and elsewhere? We began the city. Mazloumian died shortly af- quently became clear the rea- to look at the opposition like they terward, his health having given out son why that had started was were all jihadis.” amid the danger and privation of the because the CIA had received Gerald Feierstein, the US ambas- war. How far away all that must have clearance, I assume from the White House, to run a pretty sador in Yemen before becoming dep- seemed in the cozy offices of the White substantial Title 50 covert uty assistant secretary of state for Near House, not to mention the Kremlin, where program of assistance to the Eastern affairs in 2013, underscored self- described statesmen determined the vetted Syrian opposition. the Obama Administration’s naïveté fate of Armen and the rest of Syria. in 2014, three years into the war: Rob Malley believes Obama’s primary CIA operatives in Turkey “There was a sense that the momen- motivation was humanitarian. The ad- and Jordan screened rebels tum was really with the opposition, ministration sent aid to refugees in Tur- to weed out fundamental- the government was weak, and some key and Jordan and deployed a USAID ists. Vetting, however, hope that at least if not Bashar himself transition-and- response team, under the proved futile. but that others within the regime name START, to assist local administra- The net effect was not, as might be interested in some kind of a tion in parts of Syria that the regime had Phil Gordon hoped, to “accelerate the face- saving way to get out of a jam. But evacuated. The problem in Syria, process of Assad’s departure.” In fact, Gordon conceded, it was the opposite: “I think that what we saw was that the more we did for the opposition, the more the backers of the regime did for the regime.” Iran’s Lebanese surrogate, He- zbollah, sent more fighters from Lebanon to back Assad. The Russians came to Assad’s rescue with troops and air power, while the Iranians in- troduced units of Iraqi and Afghan Shias. On the opposition side, jihadis from Chechnya, Af- ghanistan, Algeria, China, and Europe joined the fight. Together with indigenous fun- damentalists, they reduced the FSA to irrelevance. “We didn’t have a great understanding of who was doing what on the ground,” Phil Gordon said, “and couldn’t control it. So, you would be running the risk that, almost the inevitable risk that, in a revolutionary situation, they weren’t.” Others in the adminis- though, was not humanitarian; it was the worst guys were the ones that would tration, he said, “were saying that we political, and the political dynamics take and use the weapons.” The most should just accept that Bashar was were evolving. An official who took up extreme elements, the Al Qaeda off- going to stay.” his post at the White House in February

Syrian Arab Red Crescent vehicles in eastern Ghouta, March 24, 2018 © Anas Alkharboutli/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images REVISION 59 2014 observed a policy too entrenched an overt Title 10 program for the that the people who were being sup- to be reversed: “The opposition backed Defense Department to arm any- plied were al- Nusra and Al Qaeda and by the US was also backed from the one who would fight the Islamic the extremist elements of jihadis com- outset by others—Saudi Arabia, Turkey, State. The beneficiaries were main- ing from other parts of the world. and Qatar, whose objective clearly was ly the Kurds of northeastern Syria, to overthrow the regime and remove who fought tenaciously but had no US strategists underestimated Rus- Iran. That is what the war quickly came interest in confronting the Syrian sia’s commitment to Assad. Syria was to be about.” Army. This was not without its the only one of the twenty- two mem- By that stage, one faction in the complications. Turkey regarded all bers of the Arab League in the Russian administration got cold feet. Phil armed Kurds as terrorists, and camp, dating to its first purchases of Gordon said, “I’ll be honest, and many Syrian fighters refused to Soviet arms in the mid- 1950s. Assad’s I’ve written about this publicly, by fight the Islamic State if they could survival was a test of Russian credi- then I had concluded that we had a not confront the Assad regime as bility. Russia’s air force and army in- strategy that just wasn’t going to well. A state of lunacy was reached tervened in September 2015, and by work.” Gordon said that the United when the respective insurgent December 2016 they helped drive States by 2015 had “a means- ends bands of the CIA’s covert and the the rebels out of the eastern half of gap. You have to change the means Defense Department’s overt pro- Aleppo. Many regarded that as the or the end.” His conclusion was grams turned their American weap- war’s turning point, after which that the United States should ons on each other. Former deputy Assad could no longer lose. change the objective, because “it director of national intelligence Syria proved to be Russia’s re- wasn’t realistic to get rid of Assad. I Michael Dempsey told me, “Some demption in the Middle East. Putin didn’t see a path of doing so without of the training programs were op- became a regional power broker, for a major US military intervention tions between doing nothing and the first time selling anti aircraft sys- that would escalate the conflict. military intervention.” Dempsey, tems to Turkey, a NATO member; And even if it succeeded, [it] could whose brother Martin, as chairman sending military delegations to Iraq; be a version of catastrophic success, of the JCS, resisted military inter- and organizing discussions about where you create a vacuum that ex- vention in Syria, echoed Ben Syria among Turkey, Israel, and sev- tremists would fill.” Rhodes: “No one was sure it would eral Arab states. work, but we had to do something.” Regime victories followed the eeking continued US support, The triumphs of the Islamic triumph in Aleppo, as Russia en- S the Free Syrian Army dis- State caused a change in thinking abled the Syrian Army, with Hez- tanced itself from the Islamic at the White House. One of the bollah and Iran, to advance into State. “On January first, 2014, the Obama insiders I interviewed said, rebel territory. The insurgents ei- FSA collectively, in northern Syria, “When I left in 2014, it was game ther fought to the death or accepted declared war on ISIS,” said Charles over for dealing with Syria outside “reconciliation” that allowed them Lister. “And in ten weeks, ISIS was ex- of ISIS.” The Islamic State’s some- to go with their families and small pelled from four and a half provinces time rival, occasional ally, and fel- arms to their last redoubt in the in northern Syria.” The Islamic low Al Qaeda offshoot Jabhat northern province of Idlib. The ne- State concentrated its forces in al- Nusra also provoked the admin- gotiators deciding Idlib’s fate in- northeast Syria along the Iraqi bor- istration’s ire. Joe Biden spoke to cluded Russia, Turkey, Assad, and der, rampaging across western Iraq, Qatar’s ruler, Sheikh Hamad bin most rebel leaders—but not the much as Ambassador Ford and oth- Khalifa Al Thari, in April of 2013, United States. ers had predicted. The Islamic State’s about his support for the extrem- The result of US meddling in self- proclaimed caliphate threatened ists. One of Biden’s closest advisers Syria was failure on all counts. It America’s local allies, the Kurds in said that the vice president told did not depose Assad, who looks Erbil and Baghdad’s Shia- led govern- the emir, “If you gave me a choice like he is set to hold on to power ment. Obama had ignored the Islamic between Assad and Nusra, I’ll take for years. It did not expel Iran and State in Syria, until it impinged on Assad.” Biden went public at Har- Russia, whose influence and foot- American interests in Iraq. “I think vard’s Kennedy School of Govern- prints in Syria expanded. It did not there was a period of time where ment on October 2, 2014: break the Syria– Hezbollah alli- again there was a certain amount of ance. Nor did it ameliorate civilian panic, particularly involved with the Our allies in the region were our larg- suffering, as refugees either stay in threat to the Yezidis,” Feierstein said. est problem in Syria. The Turks . . . the exile squalor or return to demol- “And I think things in Iraq were un- Saudis, the Emiratis, etc. What were ished homes. It had the unintended raveling at a pace that was really ex- they doing? They were so determined consequence of turning Turkey to take down Assad and essentially tremely concerning and that we have a proxy Sunni– Shia war, what from a traditional ally into a re- needed to respond.” did they do? They poured hundreds of gional adversary. Syrian conspiracy Obama’s attention shifted from millions of dollars and tens of thou- theorists claim the US goal was to Assad to defeating a force dedicated sands of tons of weapons into anyone destroy Syria, as it did Iraq, to pro- to worldwide terrorism. This led to who would fight against Assad. Except tect Israel. Only if that were true

60 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / FEBRUARY 2019 *

could the United States be said to thing but, you know, that it’s a horrifi c have achieved any objective. tragedy on every level, for the Syrians, for the neighbors, for us. I’ve yet to fi nd he American election of No- the path to a better outcome, other vember 2016 appeared to pres- than not fomenting the insurgency in T the fi rst place. I think the original sin age disengagement from Syria. is getting on board for supporting an * Trump canceled Obama’s Title 50 armed opposition that had little pros- program that armed Syrian opposi- pect of actually bringing about a politi- tionists in July 2017. But one of his cal transition in a more stable Syria. senior offi cials admonished me, Not sure where “When everyone tells you it’s over, Does anyone remember the “Viet- it’s not over. This has a long way to nam syndrome,” the American aver- to start with go.” He added, “And it’s still in our in- sion to invading other countries fol- terests to try to bring an end to it. But lowing the April 1975 fall of Saigon? 168 years of not an end to it just at any cost.” Trump It lasted until January 1991, when has so far retained the Special Forces General Norman Schwarzkopf’s de- archives? troops Obama sent to oppose the Is- feat of Saddam Hussein’s occupying lamic State in northeastern Syria, army in Kuwait made invasion re- where they may be vulnerable to spectable again. The US armed forces Syrian-government-backed insurgents. invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and Turkey has been shelling the US-backed Iraq in 2003. The prolonged warfare Kurds in Syria, and Erdogan˘ has vowed in Afghanistan and chaos in occu- to destroy their armed presence along pied Iraq were decisive factors in de- his border.3 terring Obama from invading Syria. Some State Department offi cials I Phil Gordon thought the United know refused to discuss the Trump States Army could have defeated the policy, saying the administration was Syrian Army, but that would have keeping a close eye out for leaks. Any- been the beginning, not the end, of SUBSCRIBE TO way, one said, he wasn’t sure what the the problem: “Once we topple the re- policy was. Trump’s principal target is gime, are the stable moderates going Iran, and his advisers propose hitting to come to power and govern Syria? I Harper’s Magazine’s Iran in Syria while considering sup- don’t think so. And then you’ve just port for the Mujahedeen- e- Khalq, Ira- got a different form of chaos that Weekly Archive nian militants, and former Saddam we’re responsible for.” Hussein loyalists who featured on the Obama’s foreign policy team had Newsletter State Department’s Foreign Terrorist advanced degrees from Harvard, Organization List until 2012. Yale, and Georgetown, as well as I asked an Obama Mideast adviser Rhodes scholarships, and better cre- what, in retrospect, he would have dentials than most Fortune 500 done differently. “There were serious boards, university faculties, and a curated selection risks in throwing in our lot with the think tanks. They were “the best of excellent writing opposition. We gave them false hope. and the brightest” of our time, heirs We didn’t control what they did with to the wunderkinder John F. Kenne- that helps put the their weapons. We didn’t control who dy brought to Washington in 1961. they cooperated with. And no matter Kennedy’s “best and brightest” week’s events into what, we were still on the hook.” Phil gave the country the mass atrocity Gordon is one of those who learned that was the Vietnam War, while greater context, something from Syria. Speaking to me Obama’s oversaw the devastation of in his Council on Foreign Relations Syria. Like Alec Guinness’s Colonel delivered to offi ce, where he is the Mary and David Nicholson in The Bridge on the River your inbox Boies senior fellow, he refl ected, Kwai, Obama’s best and brightest may look with shock at their handi- • • I’ve obviously thought about this free of charge many, many times, because you can’t work and ask, “What have I done?” look back at Syria and conclude any- Colonel Nicholson’s fi nal act, after trying to save the bridge he built for 3 Just as this issue went to press, President his Japanese captors, was to fall on Trump announced that he was considering the detonator and blow it up. Then, withdrawing all ground troops from Syria. visit harpers.org/ “We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only he died. In Washington, they go on reason for being there during the Trump to think tanks and academe to archives-emails Presidency,” he wrote on Twitter. await the call to serve again. ■ to sign up today

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